113 posts from October 2011

Monday, October 31, 2011

Because no friendly singalong would feel right without an edge, every year we offer a contest. This allows audience members to do the only thing that's more fun in life than singing, i.e. competing.

To enter this year's contest, write a brief tale (250 words or so) of a memorable moment you've had that involves a holiday song. The song might be a traditional Christmas carol or it might be something as dreadful as "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus." The quality of the song doesn't matter. All we want is your memory of it. Tell us what happened. What song. Why you remember. It may be funny, it may be sad. Be specific.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Over the years, my ritual announcement here in late October saying tickets are now on sale for the “Songs of Good Cheer” Christmas-season caroling parties has evolved from a come-on to a heads-up.

Metro columnist Mary Schmich and I began fronting these charity events at the Old Town School of Folk Music in 1999, and they've become such a tradition for so many people that tickets go quickly and they always sell out.

She plays piano. I play guitar. We're accompanied on stage by a cast of amazingly talented professional musicians affiliated with the school. Everyone in the 450-seat auditorium gets a songbook and together we make incredible, memorable music drawn from various traditions of the season.

Last year, for the first time, we attempted “Hallelujah Chorus,” the five-minute frosting on the cake of Handel's “Messiah,” and it was such a success that we're reprising it for this year's programs on the evenings of December 16, 17 and 18. For those who'd like to practice in advance, we've posted sheet music and sound files for the individual parts at our Facebook page where you can also find information on how to order tickets.

A roundup of state and local news-review and weekly political chat shows. Descriptions provided by the broadcast outlets in most cases:

CapitolView WSEC-TV/PBS Springfield: Host Jamey Dunn(Illinois Issues Magazine) with Benjamin Yount (Illinois Statehouse News), Charlie Wheeler (Public Affairs Reporting Program, University of Illinois Springfield) and Mike Lawrence (Statehouse columnist). The first week of veto session in the Illinois General Assembly wraps up with some unexpected movement on some of the issues facing the legislature. Gaming, the Smart Grid/ComEd rate hike and pensions are discussed. On Facebook at CapitolViewPolitics.<

Chicago Tonight: The Week in Review (WTTW-Ch. 11) Host Joel Weisman with
Bruce Dold and Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune; Craig Dellimore of WBBM Newsradio 780 & 105.9 FM and Steve Daniels, Crain’s Chicago Business:
Gov. Pat Quinn is furious after lawmakers override his veto and approve consumer rate hikes to pay for a “smart grid.” The CME and CBOE are asking for a $120 million tax break to stay in Chicago. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is cutting 1,000 workers, and raising taxes and fees to fill a $315 million budget deficit. Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to blanket the city with cameras to nab speeding drivers, as aldermen debate ticketing Chicagoans who don’t shovel. The ACLU files suit against Chicago for alleged police deployment discrimination. And in sports, the Cubs welcome Theo Epstein to the front office.

Connected to Chicago (mp3) WLS-AM. Host Bill Cameron with Dan Miahaloplous of the Chicago News Cooperative, Ray Long of the Chicago Tribune, Greg Hinz of Crain's Chicago Business and Larry Yellen of FOX Chicago: The recently passed ComEd Smart-Grid bill, the trial of William Cellini and the casino bill in Springfield.

Chicago Newsroom CAN TV: Host Ken Davis is joined by John Dempsey (WLS-AM radio) and veteran political consultant Don Rose. They discuss efforts to expand gambling, County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's proposed budget cuts, and beat officer deployment in Chicago.

Hill's work doesn't rise to the level of brilliance of Jim Dale's reading of the Harry Potter series -- that performance set a standard that may never be equalled -- but he pulls you through the famous yarn with wit added through inflection.

The accompanying photo is going around -- it's an e-mail screed from April, 2010 done up to look like a response to Occupy Wall Street and similar protests. So you don't have to squint, here's the text:

“We are Wall Street. It’s our job to make money. Whether it’s a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn’t matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn’t hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone’s 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I’ve never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.

Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.

Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We’re used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don’t take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don’t demand a union. We don’t retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we’ll eat that.

For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We’re going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I’ll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.

So now that we’re going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we’re going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren’t going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We’re going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it. When our money dries up, so does yours.

The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it’s really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.

We aren’t dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply…will he? and will they?”

“We are an upwardly mobile society with a lot of movement between income groups,” (Wisconsin Republican U.S. Rep. Paul) Ryan said. “The Treasury Department’s latest study on income mobility in America found that during the 10-year period starting in 1996, roughly half of the taxpayers who started in the bottom 20 percent had moved up to a higher income group by 2005.”

That’s pretty much what the study says. It’s from 2007. As of four years ago, it provided a rosy picture of economic mobility. But why stop four years ago? What Ryan didn’t say was that more recently, Americans have been moving up and down between economic brackets at a punier rate than the French, or Germans, or Swedes, or some of the other peoples of Europe, the GOP’s continental cautionary tale.

One reporter tried to get at this, reminding Ryan of a brand-new CBO study of economic inequality. It had found that the “wealthiest 1 percent”—the gorgons that the Occupiers want to stop slanting the economy for—had tripled their wealth from 1979 to 2007. Ryan said he hadn’t heard the report. But would you like some bromides?

Mobility -- the prospect of being able to move on up through some combination of luck, ingenuity and hard work -- is the sustaining promise of capitalism. The less likely it seems, the more restive the population becomes, the higher the frustration level with eye-popping income inequality.

Another one of those familiar scam letters came today (Oct. 21) from the account of Harris Meyer of Yakima, Wash., an acquaintance who is a freelance writer formerly based in Chicago:

I'm writing this with tears in my eyes,my family and I came over here to London,United Kingdom for a short vacation. unfortunately,we were mugged at the park of the hotel where we stayed,all cash,cell phone and credit card were stolen off us but luckily for us we still have our passports with us.

We've been to the Embassy and the Police here but they're not helping issues at all and our flight leaves in few hours from now but we're having problems settling the hotel bills and the hotel manager won't let us leave until we settle the bills. Well I really need your financial assistance.Let me know if you are willing to help us out or not.

It's a familiar ruse used by those who hack into others' email accounts. I wrote back:

So sorry to hear of your misfortune! As you know, Wee Jock's life-saving cancer surgery is scheduled for next Friday and without the money up front the hospital will refuse to go forward. If I send you the money, can you assure me that you can get it all back to me in a week's time? It's literally a matter of life and death for Wee Jock, and he is our only child.

QUICK TAKE: Given these numbers, I'd be very surprised if Bachmann, Santorum and Huntsman are even around after New Hampshire, Cain still strikes me as a mirage. Gingrich is lurking right about where John McCain was lurking four years ago. Paul's supporters won't be disappointed by these snapshots, but Perry's supporters should be.

Being told by televangelist Pat Robertson that your conservatism is coming on too strong is like:

•being told by Rahm Emanuel that, hey, your language is offensive;

•being told by Lindsay Lohan that your drinking is out of control;

•being told by Oprah Winfrey that your ego is over the top.

So imagine the chagrin of Republican Party activists and the field of GOP presidential hopefuls when they heard how Robertson scolded them on the air earlier this week.

"Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off this stuff," he said. "They're forcing their leaders, the front-runners, into positions that will mean they (will) lose the general election."

Robertson, who ran for president in 1988 and is known for delivering unhinged culture-war rhetoric with aw-shucks geniality, went on to clarify: "You appeal to the narrow base," he said. "And they'll applaud the daylights out of what you're saying, and then you hit the general election and (voters will) say 'no way.' And then the Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. (The GOP candidates have) got to stop this."

But as a tactical, political matter, Robertson is right. To win favor with the demanding base of the Republican electorate, the GOP presidential contenders are staking out positions that recent polls say are generally unpopular.

Should we raise taxes on the wealthy to help cut the federal deficit?

The Republican candidates say no. And in a CBS News/New York Times poll this month 54 percent of self-identified Republicans said no, the U.S. shouldn't raise taxes on millionaires.

But 64 percent of all respondents, including 65 percent of independent voters, said yes. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll taken this month found 76 percent support raising taxes on millionaires, and 63 percent support hiking taxes on income over $250,000.

The Republican field supports lowering corporate taxes in an effort to boost the economy. Only 27 percent of the public agrees, according to the CBS poll. Meanwhile, 80 percent back the increased infrastructure spending called for in President Barack Obama's jobs bill.

Leaders in the Republican field repeatedly promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). But only 25 percent of the public supports a full repeal, according to the CBS poll. A Kaiser Family Foundation survey in July found 53 percent support either expanding the law or keeping it as it is.

That GOP plan to transform Medicare into a voucher program? Just one in three voters approve, according to ABC News/Washington Post and Pew Research Center polls.

Should Congress pass new regulations on private industry in an effort to reduce global climate change? All but Jon Huntsman in the GOP field pooh-pooh the idea that humans are doing serious harm to the environment, but 56 percent of voters favor new regulations, according to a USA Today/Gallup poll taken earlier this year.

Gays in the military? The audience at a GOP debate booed a gay soldier, and the contenders oppose the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." But 68 percent of voters told CBS a month ago that they favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

GOP candidates push for a reversal of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that established abortion rights, yet polls consistently have shown 60 percent of the public wants Roe upheld.

And while the Republican candidates are uniformly declaring their anti-abortion bona fides, poll after poll shows that about 55 percent of Americans think abortion should be legal in most or all cases.

When the Pew Research Center asked voters earlier this year which party is more "extreme," roughly half said Republicans and a third said Democrats. And when it comes to the polarizing issue of class, 69 percent of respondents to the CBS poll said Republican policies favor the rich, and 9 percent said they favor the middle class; 28 percent said Democratic policies favor the rich, and 23 percent said they favor the middle class.

Not that candidates should consult polling data before taking positions, that the majority always knows what's best or that any one of these issues will, in the end, outweigh dissatisfaction and impatience with Obama's handling of the economy.

Just that I'm compelled to conclude with words I thought I'd never type:

Those people in the Republican primary have got to lay off this stuff. They're forcing their leaders, the front-runners, into positions that will mean they lose the general election...You appeal to the narrow base. And they'll applaud the daylights out of what you're saying, and then you hit the general election and they say 'no way.' And then the Democrat, whoever it is, is going to just play these statements to the hilt. They've got to stop this. It's just so counterproductive. Well, if they want to lose, this is the game for losers.

(Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod) Blagojevich stood to get a state pension of about $65,000 a year. If he loses that pension, he would be eligible for a refund of about $128,000 in personal contributions he made to the state's retirement fund. Blagojevich still can collect a $15,000-a-year federal pension for his six years as a congressman....from Ray Long's story today, Blagojevich faces pension hurdle, loses law license

So he was a Congressman for six years (Jan, 1997 to Jan, 2003) when his salary was:

...or an average of about $140,500. To create a nest egg that would return $15,000 a year in perpetuity at, say, a 5% rate of return, he'd have had to have invested $300,000, or $50,000 a year for each year he was a Congressman.

The story further tells us that he made $128,000 in contributions to the state pension fund over about 10 years -- four as a state rep, six as governor. Let's say that his employer, the state, kicked in another $128,000 on his behalf to the pension fund. Total: $256,000.

To get a $65,000 annual return on $256,0000 you'd need to find an investment paying 25.4%

Now these are back of the envelope numbers and they don't include actuarial adjustments (pension recipients don't collect in perpetuity, obviously). I welcome recalculations and other tweaks, as well as attempts by anyone to justify this kind of largess.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

I don't often agree with frequent commenter "Jimmy G," but his suggestion of Arlo Guthrie's version of Bob Dylan's "Percy's Song" was my favorite of all the musical suggestions/requests made by Change of Subject readers for my appearance this Saturday on "Sweet Folk Chicago" (7 p.m. on WFMT 98.7 FM).

Each week, Rich Warren, the proprietor of the show (and host of "Folkstage" and "The Midnight Special," which follow "Sweet Folk Chicago"), gives his guests an hour to play their favorite music and talk about it. And he offered me a chance to play an hour's worth of requests offered by readers of this blog.

I went through scores of submissions -- auditioning many of them on Spotify or YouTube -- to come up with what I hope is a balanced selection of folk/trad/country/roots tunes that will be enjoyed by those all across the political spectrum.

Unlike Dylan's "Hurricane," "Percy's Song" doesn't seem to be based on a real-life miscarriage of justice (99 years in Joliet Correctional Center for vehicular manslaughter? We would have heard about that). The chord pattern and portions of the refrain are borrowed from the traditional song "Wind and Rain," which in turn is a variation on "The Two Sisters," a grim ballad of petty revenge and corpse mutilation. Enjoy!

Webb labeled Levine a "con man" whose oath meant nothing, calling him at one point "a wack job."...from today's Tribune story about the closing of the Bill Cellini trial

Prosecutors call Cellini ‘extorter,’ defense dubs star witness ‘a whack job’.... Sun-Times headline over a story about the same event.

So, should it be "wack job" or "whack job"? Based on Google and Bing search results, "whack job" is the more common usage by about two to one.

My eye also prefers "whack" but, since the term is clearly related to "wacky" (a "whack job" would be a mob hit), my head prefers "wack."

Some use the spelling "whacky" (listed as a variant spelling though Google prefers "wacky" better than 3 to 1), which is certainly defensible since the adjective comes from the idiomatic expression, "out of whack."

There seems to have been a phrase "in fine whack" during (the 19th) century, meaning that something was in good condition or excellent fettle....To be "out of whack" would then have meant the opposite — that something wasn’t on top form or working well. It was first applied to people with ailments (“My back is out of whack”). In the early years of the twentieth century it started to refer to mechanisms. It might be that the sense was influenced by the idea that faulty mechanisms responded to a quick thwack.

Levine was so far gone into his seedy and depraved world of drugs, corruption and overall dissolution that I doubt minor percussive therapy would have helped.

UPDATE -- Language maven Ben Zimmer responded to my query:

"Wacky"/"wacko" is likely related to "out of whack" (or "whacked out"), but the h-less spelling went its own crazy way. (Note also "wack" from early hiphop slang, as in the old slogan "crack is wack" -- no h, since it's in the "wacky" family.) "Whack job" is a little puzzling, as you suggest, since it seems to fit conceptually with the h-less "wacky" family. The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English in fact lists it as "wack job; whack job" (and gives a 1979 citation for the "whack" spelling and a 1995 citation for "wack," from Howard Stern):

And looking around online I see there are some who justify "wack job" by saying that "whack job" should properly refer to a Mafia hit. But like you, my eyes prefer "whack job," which you can still justify by relating it to the older "whacked out" forms.

An intriguing, calm letter in my in-box to balance out the spittle-flecked, vitriolic response from Ron Paul supporters to a post yesterday:

Hello Mr. Zorn!

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to read this. I'm sure by this point anything Ron Paul related has become extremely tiresome to you, as it has been for me since about 2008.

Two months ago, I couldn't agreed with you more that Ron Paul didn't have a snow ball's chance in hell of winning the republican nomination. He's a libertarian in conservative clothing. He doesn't exactly resonate with the Christian conservatives. He doesn't exemplify the positions of a GOP candidate. His stance on foreign policy doesn't match the Republican ideals. He does, however have a tide of circumstance in his favor.

A Lockhorns cartoon supplied my college friends and me with one of our favorite catchphrases.

The long-lost panel shows Leroy (r), standing on his front porch in this pajamas, stretching happily as the sun comes over the horizon. With great enthusiasm he says, "What a glorious day for a highball!"

It being a glorious day for a highball became a nearly obligatory observation in our group whenever the weather was nice, though we were never exactly sure what a highball was. I've since tried to spread the expression around, but to little avail. Perhaps you can help (or at least share your favorite Lockhorns joke).

Lower-valued meat trimmings reduced in size by comminution (flaking, chunking, grinding, chopping or slicing) (are) mixed with salt and water to extract salt-soluble proteins. These extracted proteins are critical to produce a “glue” which binds muscle pieces together. These muscle pieces may then be reformed to produce a “meat log” of specific form or shape....an expert quoted in The Invention of the McRib and Why It Disappears from McDonald's by Chicago Magazine's ace blogger, Whet Moser

Just like you don't want to see sausage being made, you may not want to read about how McRibs are assembled (hint, not with ribs). They are tasty, though.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Robert Kelly was indignant: “Mr. Claypool says when we work our birthday, we get 21/2 times rate,” he said. “We don’t!”

Kelly is president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308, which represents the rail employees of the Chicago Transit Authority. He was speaking Monday evening during a joint appearance with CTA President Forrest Claypool on WTTW-Ch. 11 and responding to criticisms Claypool has made of contractual work rules that Claypool says are outmoded and “encrusted on the system like barnacles.”

Some of Claypool’s complaints are difficult for outsiders to evaluate. After all, what do most of us know about what it takes to swap out an air-conditioning unit, perform brake maintenance on huge vehicles or properly park a train? But we all understand birthdays.

And in the published litany of alleged outrages was the claim that unionized transit workers are paid double time and a half if they work on their birthday or the anniversary of their employment.

Talk about many happy returns! Earning $50 an hour if you usually earn $20, just because it is Your Special Day.

And who pays for these gifts? Riders, the same folks who are looking at fare increases or service cuts if the CTA doesn’t get its costs under control, in part by winning work-rule concessions from its unions.

Kelly, who was seated next to Claypool on the WTTW set during the contentious conversation, went on: “If a guy is working and is getting paid for eight hours and he works on his birthday, he gets an additional eight” hours, he said. “If you do the math, that’s not 21/2 times. There’s nobody out there who gets 21/2 times.”

Well, almost nobody. During a follow-up interview Tuesday, Kelly said that when his members are called to work an overtime day on their birthday or employment anniversary, they’re paid double time and a half, but he estimated that “it doesn’t even happen 100 times a year.”

Still. WTTW moderator Eddie Arruza asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Why do they get paid extra on their birthday anyway?”

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
More about Eric Zorn

Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.